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Divisions & Units - Mathematical & Physical Sciences

New images obtained by the Hubble Space Telescope confirm the presence of a “dark vortex” in the atmosphere of Neptune, a rare type of feature that can persist for years. This vortex, the first to be observed on Neptune in the 21st century, was first seen in September 2015 by the HST.

The Large Underground Xenon (LUX) dark matter experiment has already proven itself to be the most sensitive detector in the hunt for dark matter. Now with a new set of calibration techniques coupled with advanced computer simulations at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s (Berkeley Lab) National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) and Brown University’s Center for Computation and Visualization (CCV) the detector’s sensitivity has dramatically improved again.

In Japan and areas like the Pacific Northwest where megathrust earthquakes are common, scientists may be able to better forecast large quakes based on periodic increases and decreases in the rate of slow, quiet slipping along the fault, thanks to the work of Berkeley seismologists.

California Gov. Jerry Brown is headed to Paris this weekend for the two-week global climate summit, prepped for his meetings by a team of scientists almost entirely from the UC system, including two from UC Berkeley: William Collins, a professor of earth and planetary science and a Berkeley Lab researcher; and Anthony Barnosky, a professor of integrative biology.

Congratulations to our Berkeley faculty who received the famed Breakthrough Prize: Ian Agol, Breakthrough Prize Winners Kam-Biu Luk and Ian AgolMathematics and The Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment team co-led by Kam-Biu Luk, Physics.
Founded by Sergey Brin and Anne Wojcicki, Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, and Yuri and Julia Milner, the Breakthrough Prize honors important achievements in the categories of Fundamental Physics, Life Sciences and Mathematics.

A new techinique pioneered by a former UC Berkeley postdoctoral fellow uses ripples in the distribution of hydrogen gas to uncover the presence of invisible satellite galaxies which may be buzzing around or through the Milky Way.

President Obama this week named three young UC Berkeley faculty members as recipients of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers, the highest honor bestowed by the U.S. government on science and engineering professionals in the early stages of their independent research careers.

UC Berkeley scientists today are releasing a free Android app that taps a smartphone’s ability to record ground shaking from an earthquake, with the goal of creating a worldwide seismic detection network that could eventually warn users of impending jolts from nearby quakes.